Lady Trojans face Berkeley tonight

Oak Ridge High’s varsity girls went on the road Tuesday and pulled a mild upset over Lowell in the first round of the Northern California basketball playoffs.
Tonight the Lady Trojans will have to pull a major upset to advance, as they faced top-seeded Berkeley, a rematch of last year’s Northern California championship game, won by Oak Ridge.
Trojan coach Steve White knows his team will have to play their best game of the season to pull off the victory.
“It’s going to take a very good performance on our part,” White said. “They have a lot of pieces and that’s what makes them strong. We’re going to have to be on in all of our games: shooting, rebounding, defense. We’ve been in competitive games and we know if we can put four quarters together anything can happen.”
Oak Ridge defeated Lowell thanks in part to a stifling defense and some hot three-point shooting. The Lady Trojans jumped out to an 18-8 lead after the first quarter and extended that to 30-12 by halftime on their way to a 56-31 victory.
Oak Ridge hit six threes in the first half, four by Dakota McLarnan and two by Natalie Stone. McLarnan led the team with 16 points, while Stone scored 12 points, all coming on three-pointers.
“They (Lowell) didn’t shoot the ball well and a lot of that was our defense,” White said of his team’s performance. “We limited their possession as many times they didn’t get the ball up the floor until there was 15 seconds to go on the shot clock.”